I’ve always hated modeling. It’s superficial and fake, and I hate to have to care about what I look like. I get a pimple and freak. The whole business is all about selling beautiful girls’ faces and bodies, so how can there be anything intelligent or nice about that except for the girl who makes money?
I did a little modeling in Minnesota, but because I was a heavier ‘model,’ I didn’t pursue it much when I lived there.
Modeling is an incredible job for a girl if she approaches it with her head on her shoulders. You travel, you speak to people, and it opens your mind to different things.
When I started modeling, they tried to pay black models less than they paid Caucasian models. I turned down those jobs because I knew what I was worth.
I love modeling, and I missed fashion and my friends and family in fashion and the creativity that I’m able to express through it. I didn’t feel I was getting enough of that through my acting.
I’ve been chasing some paychecks. Modeling. I don’t discriminate against paychecks. I’ve got to pay the bills.
I don’t like modeling, but in terms of the places I got to visit, it was great.
When I started modeling, I was definitely heavier. I was quite voluptuous in fact. I had a real baby face and baby fat. But I was a baby! I was told I had to get into better shape, but I’m quite stubborn so I didn’t.
My journey into modeling began completely by chance. I was in school finishing up my master’s degree in health management and policy when a friend entered me into an online modeling competition.
I stopped modeling so I could go to drama school at the William Esper Studio. It’s Meisner.
I’m definitely focusing all of my attention on acting. Modeling comes up by default, and I love it – of course I think that it’s great – but I’m definitely focusing all of my attention on acting.
Early in my modeling career, when I was a teenager, I really took care of my skin. I didn’t get too much sun exposure, and I moisturized.
In college, students would do modeling to earn money. I was also doing the same.
I began modeling in N.Y. and doing commercials. That led to regional theatre and then Broadway and then movies.
What people want to know is, OK, what’s after modeling? It’s not just OK anymore to model until you’re 25 and then stop and be a housewife.
People have to understand how important it is for kids to be nurtured by their mom and dad and get the great role modeling when they are young.
With acting, the last thing you do is try to look pretty. Modeling actually makes acting harder – it makes you so self-aware.
With modeling, you pose. You want to look your best all the time. With acting, you have to be aware of the camera, but the more you show your imperfections, the better you’re going to be.
I have done so much: modeling, acting, singing, the calendar, the lingerie line, and there have been times where I have wanted to give up but I went for it.
I moved to New York between my junior and senior years of high school to just see what it was like, to go to a modeling agency and see how to get representation.
As scary as it is, I like making real, direct eye contact with people from the stage. In a sense, it’s like modeling: that feeling of locking in and projecting some kind of emotion to try to captivate people.
I always knew I wanted to be in films but didn’t want anyone to taunt my parents. So I excelled in studies. I was a topper in school and college, so when I decided to become a model, people said, ‘Oh your daughter is modeling,’ so at least my parents could say, ‘Yeah but she also came first in class.’
I am going to branch out to acting and do more modeling.
I remember the senior class play I was in. I was also in the musical, although I can’t sing at all, but I wanted to be a part of it. Then I was modeling in Pittsburgh, so being in front of the camera was something I enjoyed and benefited from. I made money growing up by modeling locally.
An unforgettable experience happened on December 15, 1996 when I won the Supermodel contest while still in school. I was just seventeen years old then. Winning that competition was the turning point of my life. That’s how I got into modeling and later started acting.
When I was a teenager, me and a couple of my friends entered a couple of modeling competitions just for fun, and one of those got me an agent in Sydney.
Modeling was sort of a way to not work in a bar – it gave me time to really think about what I wanted to do, and things I liked and didn’t like.
It’s weird that the world sees modeling as a negative. It just blows my mind how many people think that because I was a model, I think I’m pretty and that I can use my looks to get ahead. I’m not pretty!
When you’re acting, you’re a person. When you’re modeling, you’re a hanger.
I met an agent through my modeling agency who encouraged me to go out and audition for sitcoms, and I was absolutely petrified because I had no desire to do it.
When I was a little girl, I lived for modeling and fashion – I used to love, love, love modeling.
I guess you can consider photo shoots modeling, but it’s never really interested me. I find it somewhat boring, actually. It wouldn’t be something I would do.
Modeling was a way of financing my fighting. My fighter friends definitely made fun of me: ‘I’ve seen you in your underwear, bro!’ But once they realized the girls loved it, they asked, ‘How do I get into it?’
I like a shoot when I feel strong and sexy, a little hard, with a darker edge. That’s what I do best. I like giving a photographer what they want, working with the art director. And modeling is all I’ve ever known.
I never went to a modeling school, and I don’t suggest to anybody that they go to a modeling school… In fashion, one day you’re in, the next you’re out.
Some people, I think, think that because I don’t take it as seriously as a lot of the girls do, that I frown upon modeling or think it’s stupid. I don’t at all. This is my life. I would be nothing without this. But I really don’t take it seriously.
If I wasn’t doing modeling, I’d like to study child psychology.
When I started modeling, I was told to tan, but I always protected my face.
Modeling was a great opportunity to travel, to make some money in high school and it was the gateway to prepare me for getting comfortable in front of the camera.
The industry has died as far as modeling has gone, and I’ll tell you why. Magazines are featuring the Halle Berrys and Sarah Jessica Parkers, all the actresses. Makeup companies are featuring all the celebrities. All the models have died.
I just decided to take some time off. I’ve been modeling since ’93, ’92, and that’s a pretty long time. I’m a single mother and I chose to focus on her.
I think the only reason I wanted to do modeling, really, was because I knew I wasn’t ready to act; I knew I didn’t have enough life experience, and I knew that doing photo shoots was a way of acting. Playing a character each shoot and being able to just emerge yourself in these awkward experiences – it was amazing.
Maybe there’s some kind of modeling that can be tedious, like catalogue modeling, but there’s a kind of modeling, with runways or working with Richard Avedon, that’s not very far from acting. Besides the fact that you don’t have a partner to react to, the body language is the same.
If each of your time steps is one week long, you are not modeling the stock price terribly well over a one-week time period, because you are saying that there are only two possible outcomes.
I didn’t mean to be a TV presenter, I just hated modeling. It feels very odd that it’s turned into this ‘It-girl’ thing. What does that even mean? I wear clothes and I go out. It’s so weird.
I want to continue modeling and do the best that I can with that.
Modeling in Europe at the beginning of my career was pretty hard, with the constant traveling and uncertainty as to where I was going to be from one day to the next.
When it comes to modeling, I always feel like my body is a myth or a story that is told by other people, and no one knows what my body really looks like.
That year of modeling, I grew up a lot – I was alone in New York and just grinding and making it work, and I feel it kind of prepared me for the responsibilities of being an actor alone in L.A. and taking care of yourself.
Modeling is a lonely business.
I was modeling overseas but, during the holiday seasons, summer and winter, I came back to Korea for some time and I took acting lessons for about a month at a time.
I never cared about modeling. As a model, you’re powerless.
The research rat of the future allows experimentation without manipulation of the real world. This is the cutting edge of modeling technology.
Modeling is always something I’ve really admired because I’ve seen my mum and sister do it.
I’m thinking of slowing down on modeling and branching out to other things. I want to pursue some new and old dreams and start making them happen.
My first modeling job in Paris, the photographer said, ‘Tue es belle,’ which means, ‘you are pretty,’ and I thought he said, ‘Tu es poubelle,’ which means, ‘you are the trash can.’ I burst into tears. He was not happy about that.
With acting, if I’m any good at it, my modeling career would never be a hindrance but would rather be a help. And if I’m not, then it doesn’t really matter.
